


The Do Something Chronicles: A Third Collection of Darvey Ficlets

by justanotheranonymouswriter



Category: Suits (US TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-04
Updated: 2020-06-04
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:48:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 11,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24539515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justanotheranonymouswriter/pseuds/justanotheranonymouswriter
Summary: A collection of Harvey and Donna being mostly cute. Written as part of a fundraising effort for BLM and other black activist charities and organisations.
Relationships: Donna Paulsen & Harvey Specter, Donna Paulsen/Harvey Specter
Comments: 3
Kudos: 28





	1. 1

**Author's Note:**

> I debated posting these away from Twitter, because I don't want to hijack our current political and cultural upheaval and all the change happening to ask people to pay attention to my own writing. And it feels odd to write about these fictional characters given all that's happening. But I feel like posting these to a wider platform may generate some additional financial support for BLM. 
> 
> I wrote these over 12 hours, and for each ficlet written and posted I also donated £10 to a different organisation or charity working towards equality and justice for black people and communities. Roughly organised by chronological order though much of it is set post-S9 finale.
> 
> As you read these, please consider donating. I have listed different groups in the end notes. Seriously, even £5 helps. Your contribution matters. 
> 
> All ficlets are pretty much as written, edit for grammar/spelling and clarity.

**Prompt: What happens the morning after The Other Time.**

There’s unfamiliar birdsong out the window to his right where there isn’t usually a window, and it nudges him half into consciousness.

Fucking... Goddamn birds, he thinks, his brain sleep-blurred, and he shifts from his side onto his back with a lithe, slow stretch. Morning sunlight is falling across his face in a way that makes him, half-asleep still, squint away and bury his face in the crook of his elbow, nudging his cheek into a pillow that’s too soft for his own liking. The mattress is squeezing a low pinch into his spine and there are too many blankets and he wonders lazily why everything in his bedroom is not like his bedroom.

Also, he wonders, why is there a long, freckled arm stretched out over his stomach, fingertips scratching light circles, soothing over reddened skin still sightly sticky from whipped cream and hold on what the fuck, he thinks, and he cracks an eye open. 

Donna is on her stomach, sheets pushed low on her hips, face half pressed into her pillow, the morning making her pupils lazy and blinking slowly towards him, observing, and half-smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.

Oh. 

“Morning,” she says. 

“Morning.” He glances around. It’s her bedroom. He hadn’t really stopped to look at it. They were both somewhat… preoccupied. 

“Nice curtains,” he says, and she laughs into her pillow and tickles her hand up his side and into his hair, and calls him an idiot. 

He smiles broadly at that and isn’t quite sure why. It’s many years later that he will come to realise that it’s because ‘you’re an idiot’ means something very different when coming from Donna. 

“Coffee?” she murmurs.

“Mmm,” he says. She climbs over him to slide out of bed, and it’s all he can do not to grab her by the hips and pull her down to him again, because last night… last night. Was good. Much better and much more important than a one night stand should feel. 

He probably should have gone home, a reluctant part of his brain thinks. 

She plucks his shirt off the floor while he tries to figure out if it’s okay for him to admire the sight of her, naked, and as she shrugs into it and smiles shyly behind her on her way to the kitchen, he thinks, well, this is awkward. 

Only, it isn’t. It feels, terrifyingly, normal. Like it’s right. Like she’s right. 

She chats at him through the door while she sleepily bumps cups and french presses against each other, her hair shoved back out of her face and his shirt misbuttoned. She looks for all the world like she’s halfway through a month-long vacation, carefree and messy and light. 

Fucking hell, he could get used to this, he thinks quietly to himself.

This is why he goes home after one night stands, and why he definitely should have gone home last night, like he’d intended to. Because she is dangerous. She’s beautiful, she’s interesting, she’s whip-smart, and she fascinates him, and she’s close to every fantasy he’s ever had. 

She is far, far too easy to fall in love with. 

She pads back with coffee, which she drops onto side tables, and climbs back into bed, and wraps her arms around him, and they kiss like they are starting something, and fall back asleep, tangled together while their coffee cools next to them. 

In her shower, a couple of hours later, he thinks fuck, Harvey, you are in some kind of trouble. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is the list of organisations I donated to and their websites. Please consider donating to one or more of these:
> 
> blackvisionsmn.org  
> https://www.reclaimtheblock.org/  
> https://bailproject.org  
> https://knowyourrightscamp.com  
> https://actionnetwork.org/fundraising/contribute-to-the-atlanta-solidarity-fund  
> unicornriot.ninja  
> www.blacklivesmatter.com  
> blacktablearts.com  
> m4bl.org  
> https://linktr.ee/nationalbailout  
> https://emergencyreleasefund.com  
> https://naacpldf.org  
> naacp.org  
> runnymedetrust.org  
> https://stephenlawrence.org.uk  
> https://libertyhumanrights.org.uk


	2. 2

**Prompt: Harvey plans to meet Gordon after work but forgets the time while having drinks with Donna, and Gordon meets them both - Donna for the first time.**

Harvey’s laughing too hard to notice the number of missed calls on his phone ticking up into the double digits. 

He’s meant to be meeting his dad, who’s in town for a couple of gigs and has driven in the night before to grab dinner with him. Harvey’s looking forward to it. He hasn’t seen his dad much since moving from the DA’s office. Jessica keeps him busy and stressed, and he’s in love with the aggression of his new firm but he’d be lying if he said he was succeeding at maintaining any kind of work/life balance. He doesn’t mind it as long as he doesn’t think too hard about it. 

Donna knows, though. She can see it in him, the conflict of work and home and relationships. It’s probably why she’s always staying late, waiting for him to finish up paperwork for the night and suggest a drink before he goes out or goes home. He doesn’t think about what that says about him, or her, because there’s always the other time hovering in the background, and if they were to think about it or, god forbid, talking about it, they might admit this is something close to dating. 

His stomach doesn’t seem to know the difference, anyway. It insists on filling with butterflies whenever he asks, “drink?” and she agrees with that shy smile of hers, and he feels like a goddamn teenager all over again. 

And tonight is a celebration as well, because they finally cornered that fucker from Fulson Electronics and made him settle. Harvey had pulled off some pretty incredible shit, if he does say so himself, straddling the line between genius and legal just like he likes. It had taken far longer than he’d expected, and he’d thought he was sunk for certain on a couple of occasions, but he’d done it. 

“Drink?” he’d asked. “I’m pulling out the good stuff for this one.” He lifts up a bottle that costs more than most people who weren’t lawyers for high powered firms would earn in a month. 

“The 25? How could I say no,” Donna says, smiling as she brushes past him and invites herself to sit on his couch while he measures a healthy double into two glasses. He winks when he passes it to her and doesn’t think about how that’s what he also does on first dates. 

They lose hours to talking and laughing anyway, and so it’s no different now, there’s never an evening where one of them hasn’t said the words  _ just one more _ without the other agreeing. 

It’s well past the time he was meant to meet Gordon on the sidewalk outside the Blue Note that Gordon sticks his head into Harvey’s office and says, “well, at least you’re not dead.”

“Dad, shit, sorry,” Harvey says, standing up from here he’s been perched on the coffee table in front of Donna, close enough for their knees to brush. 

Harvey always starts the evening hitched up against his desk with Donna on the sofa, and he always ends it in the armchair or on the coffee table, leaning in close enough that he dreams about her perfume at night, and he doesn’t think about what that means either. 

Harvey quickly finds his jacket to pull on, and while he does so, says “Donna, this is my dad, Gordon. Dad, this is Donna.”

“Don’t rush, Harvey, it’s about time I got to meet Donna in person.” Donna stands and geets Gordon, embracing him in that particular way she hugs people like she’s known them forever. “Is he keeping you busy?”

“You have no idea,” Donna says. 

“Let me guess; can’t use his phone, loses his keys, doesn’t know his ass from his elbow, but wins one case a year and thinks that makes him eligible for the cover of Time Magazine?”

“He also doesn’t know how to get his own suits dry cleaned,” Donna stage whispers.

“Guys, I’m right here.”

“Yeah, we know,” Gordon says, and Donna laughs while Harvey rolls his eyes. 

And later, over a slice of cheap pizza in a diner Harvey loves, Gordon fixes him with a deliberate stare and says, “So. Donna.”

“What about her?”

“When are you gonna ask her out?”

It’s so unexpected that Harvey nearly coughs his last bite of pizza up. “What?”

“Do you love her?”

“No!”

Gordon sits back in his chair, and looks at his son for a long moment. And then, with a nod of complete certainty, he says, “you love her,” like he’s telling someone gravity exists, and goes back to his pizza. 

Harvey remembers that conversation, many years later, when he watches her walk down the aisle towards him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is the list of organisations I donated to and their websites. Please consider donating to one or more of these:
> 
> blackvisionsmn.org  
> https://www.reclaimtheblock.org/  
> https://bailproject.org  
> https://knowyourrightscamp.com  
> https://actionnetwork.org/fundraising/contribute-to-the-atlanta-solidarity-fund  
> unicornriot.ninja  
> www.blacklivesmatter.com  
> blacktablearts.com  
> m4bl.org  
> https://linktr.ee/nationalbailout  
> https://emergencyreleasefund.com  
> https://naacpldf.org  
> naacp.org  
> runnymedetrust.org  
> https://stephenlawrence.org.uk  
> https://libertyhumanrights.org.uk


	3. 3

**Prompt: What if Harvey had said yes to Donna at the end of 7x13 instead of 'not tonight'.**

“Do you want to come in?” 

“Not tonight, no.” Harvey shakes his head, the air heavy between them, and starts to walk away.

“Harvey.”

He stops, and turns, and the look on his face is unreadable, but his eyes are weary. She can see that he’s tired, he’s so fucking tired of it all, and he looks like he’s not sure what else the world can possibly ask of him. 

“Harvey,” she says again, and something deep bubbles all the way up to the surface then, something they’ve both been able to ignore or turn away for different reasons at different times, because she worked for him, or because he was seeing Paula, or because of a million other reasons that neither of them can remember at the moment. 

“I can’t.” He spreads his arms helplessly by his sides. “I’m sorry. I just can’t.”

“Why not.”

“You know why.”

“What, because you love me?” It’s a harsh, unfair callback to throw in his face. It’s bitter and mean and, improbably, it works. It finally breaks the lie that’s been sitting in the air between them for a dozen years.

“Yeah, Donna, I love you,” he snaps. And he’s not being sarcastic. He’s not even angry, not really. It’s just all too goddamn much all at once. “I love you, okay?” He scrubs a hand over his face. “I love you. I have done. And I have no fucking clue what to do with it.” 

She reaches out, and grabs his wrist, and she says, “I know. I don’t know what to do with it either.” And in the same breath, she pulls him into her, stepping back into her entrance, and he steps forward to her in the same moment that his lips find hers. 

_ Oh my god he did it _ , she thinks distantly, as his hands come up to cup her face, his thumbs pressing along her cheekbones, and she hooks her hands up over the back of his head to pull him more firmly against her. His mouth is open against hers, and he pulls her lip in between his, teeth nudging along her skin, and he’s caught somewhere between release and disbelief, his hands shaking with adrenaline at the same time he kisses her with a fragility that’s desperate and terrified that this is all going to collapse any moment. 

He presses the door shut behind him with his foot, and he murmurs, “is this real,” and her heart breaks a little for him then, but she presses her fingers through his hair and over his shoulders, and says, “I’m here, Harvey,” and pushes his jacket off his shoulders. 

There’s a part of her brain telling her they should talk, that this is too quick, and too impulsive, and that there are a thousand other reasons why talking is the far smarter decision right now. The smart thing would be to stop, to pull her mouth from his and press her palm up against his chest and say  _ wait  _ and figure out what this means, what it means that he’s at her door instead of hers with a torn resignation letter in his pocket.

But then, they’ve been doing nothing but talk, for years. They’ve talked as they circled around each other, talked as they got close and then talked as they ran again. In 13 years, there’s barely been a day where they haven’t talked. But in all their talking, they still haven’t found a way to each other until this moment. 

So she doesn’t stop him, and they don’t talk. Because he’s finally found his way to her, and there’ll be time for talking later. 

She pulls him into her apartment, and into her arms, and into her bed. They press all the change and love and passion of 13 years in between them, into the way they kiss and the way they find skin on skin and in all the hitched breaths and the way he catches her name in his whispering against her ear. 

She’s lost in him and he’s lost in her, and finally it’s not just thoughts and fantasies and her imagining the gap next to her in bed at night is heavy with his body. 

It’s real. 

She wakes up the next morning with Harvey, solid and real, pressed along her back, hands and arms stretched around her, and everything’s changed. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is the list of organisations I donated to and their websites. Please consider donating to one or more of these:
> 
> blackvisionsmn.org  
> https://www.reclaimtheblock.org/  
> https://bailproject.org  
> https://knowyourrightscamp.com  
> https://actionnetwork.org/fundraising/contribute-to-the-atlanta-solidarity-fund  
> unicornriot.ninja  
> www.blacklivesmatter.com  
> blacktablearts.com  
> m4bl.org  
> https://linktr.ee/nationalbailout  
> https://emergencyreleasefund.com  
> https://naacpldf.org  
> naacp.org  
> runnymedetrust.org  
> https://stephenlawrence.org.uk  
> https://libertyhumanrights.org.uk


	4. 4

**Prompt: Donna's thought process in 8x16, before Harvey shows up at Donna's door.**

She should have called. She should have answered when he did. She should have been there. 

Donna is not one for second guessing, and she’s not one to give in to panic or anxiety. She doesn’t sit silently on her couch with a cup of coffee cooling in her hands and staring out the window, unblinking and unaware, and she doesn’t turn the decisions of the last day and week over and over, thinking about what she could have done differently. She isn’t that person, and she doesn’t tie herself up in wallowed distraction over other people. 

But Harvey. Harvey is different. And the problem is, at some point earlier in the day, and probably earlier in the week or even the month, Thomas had looked at her, looked right into her, and knew, and asked, and Donna did not have an answer for him. 

After all, how do you answer your boyfriend when he asks if you’re in love with someone else and you’re pretty sure the answer isn’t just ‘yes’ but ‘for always’.

Thomas did the right thing, leaving. 

Harvey did the right thing, throwing himself under the bus for her, because he always does. Like he’s married to her. Only, he’s not married to her. They’re just friends. Only friends don’t throw themselves under busses like that, do they.

Donna has no clue what the right thing is anymore and it’s awful. 

So she watches as her phone rings on with his name flashed up, and she doesn’t answer, and she thinks of him, smiling and winking and sliding Hermes bags across her desk like they’re high school sweethearts. And she thinks of him, taut and clenched and angry for her, a studied release of mental and sometimes physical menace towards those that have come after her. And she thinks of him, drinking quietly in her apartment before showing her his whole heart and then running scared. And she thinks of him in all that he is, and she realises as she thinks of him that she wishes, oh she wishes. 

She wishes he loved her back. 

She’d known it two years ago, when she kissed him in the dim corner of her office. She’d known it still when he pushed her away, and she pushed her feelings down, cracking them into the corners of her heart until they jumbled and separated like puzzle pieces. She’d known it then. 

And, she realises with a slow, creeping, helplessness, that she knows it now, has always done, even as she laughed and flirted and kissed and pulled other people into bed with her. She’d been faithful. She’d been with Thomas with all the confidence and goodness and sincerity she walks through all of life with. She really, really liked Thomas. 

But she still loves Harvey. 

In her helplessness, she thinks she should be furious with him. How unfair, she thinks, for him to be someone who can so casually wrap himself around her bones, and seep his way into her soul, and then not know any of this. How unfair of him to be everything she sees when she looks at anyone else, to be so intricately a part of her, and still not love her. How unfair of him to ruin her for anyone else, and to ruin himself for her, and still not want her. 

She takes a deep breath so that she doesn’t cry, and she is about to refill her cup, replace cold coffee with warm tea, and slide herself into bed, to sleep fitfully and then get up again tomorrow and pretend she doesn’t love him, another day of pretending piled on top of 15 years of pretending. 

And then there is a knock at her door. 

It’s him. 

He is there, his soul in his eyes, the first time he’s ever really let it sit so close to his surface. She sees him. He sees her. 

For the first time, they see each other. And everything connects, soul to skin to lips. 

  
  


And he loves her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is the list of organisations I donated to and their websites. Please consider donating to one or more of these:
> 
> blackvisionsmn.org  
> https://www.reclaimtheblock.org/  
> https://bailproject.org  
> https://knowyourrightscamp.com  
> https://actionnetwork.org/fundraising/contribute-to-the-atlanta-solidarity-fund  
> unicornriot.ninja  
> www.blacklivesmatter.com  
> blacktablearts.com  
> m4bl.org  
> https://linktr.ee/nationalbailout  
> https://emergencyreleasefund.com  
> https://naacpldf.org  
> naacp.org  
> runnymedetrust.org  
> https://stephenlawrence.org.uk  
> https://libertyhumanrights.org.uk


	5. 5

**Prompt: Donna and Harvey go to meet Lily while she's still alive.**

By the time the battery on his phone is pleading to be plugged into the wall socket, Donna has managed to talk Harvey into taking both a Friday and a Monday off, accepted the enthusiastic offer of the use of Lily’s spare room, tossed her own phone at Harvey and raised her eyebrow at him until he sheepishly booked a car with his car club, and she’s also managed to become such tight friends with Lily that Harvey almost feels nervous. 

Which is how he finds himself behind the wheel of a Mustang on the way to Boston with Donna enthusiastically playing a mix of every pop band he hates from the 80’s and performing a one-person variety show along with it. He rolls his eyes, and at the same time he thinks about how so incredibly lucky he managed to stumble over his love for her before it was too late. 

When they arrive, Donna and Lily embrace like the oldest of friends, laughing and pulling a tight hug together on the sidewalk. They are instantly linked. He can feel it like he could feel it when he met Donna, and the final puzzle piece slots in. 

His family is healed, and whole. 

He dwells on that thought a little too deeply, and feels tears stinging, and he makes a show of being fine and getting the bags from the car because he’s trying not to get in the way of them and the way Donna is wrapping Lily into her spirit. But Lily reaches out a hand anyway as he drops a bag next to them, grabbing a handful of his shirt at the shoulder, and pulls him in, and he thinks what the hell, and lets a tear slip through. 

He thinks they don’t notice, but they both press their palms into his back in the exact same way at the same time. 

They don’t go out for dinner. They sit in Lily’s kitchen, elbows propped on the bar counter, glasses of wine and beer bottles slowly accumulating while Harvey makes his ‘famous pasta a la Spector’. While he’s got his back to them at the stove, Lily slyly mentions to Donna that it’s just spaghetti and meatballs with some extra red pepper flakes thrown in, and quirks her eyebrow at Donna, but whispers that he’s proud of himself for his groundbreaking culinary innovation, so just go along with it. 

Donna loudly comments about how good it smells, and Harvey beams at them both over his shoulder, and Lily and Donna share a look that he doesn’t see, but if he did, it probably would have made his heart burst. 

Later, as they lie tangled together in the spare room, his arm over her waist as she tucks herself back against his torso, he nudges his nose over her ear and murmurs, “thank you for this.”

“Mmm. You’re welcome.” She lifts her hand behind her to tickle the hairline at his temple. “Lily’s amazing. I can see where you get your smarts from.”

He smiles against the back of her neck, presses a kiss down, and says, “you were as thick as thieves. Anything I need to be worried about as your current boyfriend?”

“Current?”

“Future husband,” he corrects. 

“Funny you should say that,” she murmurs. “She pulled me aside. When you were getting dessert ready. Said she was proud of you, and that she thought we were good together. Said she’s rooting for us. She also said you better not fuck it up.”

“Did she?”

“Not exactly in those words. But she’s got her eye on you, Specter.”

He strokes his fingers over her hip. “Did she ask what your intentions were?”

“She did. I promised I’d make an honest man out of you.”

He laughs then. He bumps the bridge of his nose into her hairline, and thinks about if she hadn’t pushed him to call her, to go and see her, if she hadn’t reminded him to call until it became second nature, if she hadn’t been secure enough to pad out of the lounge when she’d called to let them be, where he’d be, and he thinks, Harvey, you are fucking lucky. 

“Thanks,” he says.

“What for?”

“Everything,” he says, and pulls her tighter. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is the list of organisations I donated to and their websites. Please consider donating to one or more of these:
> 
> blackvisionsmn.org  
> https://www.reclaimtheblock.org/  
> https://bailproject.org  
> https://knowyourrightscamp.com  
> https://actionnetwork.org/fundraising/contribute-to-the-atlanta-solidarity-fund  
> unicornriot.ninja  
> www.blacklivesmatter.com  
> blacktablearts.com  
> m4bl.org  
> https://linktr.ee/nationalbailout  
> https://emergencyreleasefund.com  
> https://naacpldf.org  
> naacp.org  
> runnymedetrust.org  
> https://stephenlawrence.org.uk  
> https://libertyhumanrights.org.uk


	6. 6

**Prompt: Harvey and Donna have in a fight. Harvey leaves the apartment to blow off steam and runs into Paula.**

Faye is making things fucking difficult, and it’s bleeding out of the office and out into everything else. 

Harvey and Donna are rigid with the stress of it. They’re both hating it, hating Faye lurking over their shoulders, but they’re both hating it in different ways and it’s pressing into their decisions and discussions and into the ways they both think  _ this is the fucking worst _ . 

Harvey’s at the point where he’s ready to tear Faye’s throat out and damn the consequences. Donna’s trying her best to hold Harvey back from the worst and most bitter of his impulses and she’s adamant there’s a way without him having to be the Harvey she knew from years ago. But it’s getting to the point where it’s one road or the other and they can’t figure out which way to go, and it’s punching into their home and into their privacy, shaking through in taut arguments and snapped comments and it gets heated enough one night that Harvey takes his coat and slams the door behind him as he heads out into the city to fume and circle around his own anger. 

He wanders aimlessly for a while, stopping at some of his favourite haunts, and he’s midway through shuffling through a crate of records in a corner record store, halfheartedly searching for a worthwhile purchase, when a very familiar voice rings out from across the aisle and from two years ago. 

“Harvey?”

He looks up, and sees her, and a lot of bittersweet memories leap to the front of his consciousness. 

“Paula,” he says, and he’s surprised enough that it takes him a moment to gather himself. “Paula, hey. How are you?”

“I’m well. It’s been a while.” She tips her head at him, and she’s right, it’s been a while, but she’s always been sharp at reading people, and she had him pegged in a moment. “And you? You look … stressed.”

He laughs, and there’s a tired sarcasm to it. “You don’t miss a beat.” He shrugs. “Work’s a lot at the moment. We’re working through it.”

Paula either reads too much into the ‘we’re’ or she just saw the writing on the wall from years ago, or both, because she asks, “you and Donna?”

Harvey feels himself smile, that stupid fucking goofy smile he gets when people ask after Donna. He can’t help it, and he’s never been able to work up the enthusiasm to feel embarrassed about it either. “Yeah. We made it. No thanks to me, but… it’s good.”

Funny, he thinks, how the swell of pride and joy is so much more important than his frustration, and he suddenly can’t wait to be home with her. 

“You?” he asks.

Paula smiles, and she looks like she’s found peace as well. “I’m getting married in a few months. And I’m happy for you, Harvey. Really. I’m glad you found your way to each other.”

“We nearly missed each other.”

“But you didn’t.” She gives him a little wave, and says, “good luck, Harvey,” but she doesn’t seem to think he’ll need it. 

“Good luck Paula,” he says, and goes straight back to Donna’s apartment. He knocks, because he forgets his keys when he’s angry, and Donna opens the door, one eyebrow raised at him against his smile as he sees her.

“You’re feeling better than when you left,” she observes. 

“I ran into Paula.” In another world, that statement would have been painful. But in this world, it’s just a thing that happened to him. Because Harvey is Donna’s, and Donna is Harvey’s, and it’s as unchangeable as gravity and oxygen.

“She’s pretty good at doing things that make you show up at my door,” Donna says. 

Harvey grins. “I’ll always show up at your door,” he says, crossing the threshold to kiss her with the thoroughness of forever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is the list of organisations I donated to and their websites. Please consider donating to one or more of these:
> 
> blackvisionsmn.org  
> https://www.reclaimtheblock.org/  
> https://bailproject.org  
> https://knowyourrightscamp.com  
> https://actionnetwork.org/fundraising/contribute-to-the-atlanta-solidarity-fund  
> unicornriot.ninja  
> www.blacklivesmatter.com  
> blacktablearts.com  
> m4bl.org  
> https://linktr.ee/nationalbailout  
> https://emergencyreleasefund.com  
> https://naacpldf.org  
> naacp.org  
> runnymedetrust.org  
> https://stephenlawrence.org.uk  
> https://libertyhumanrights.org.uk


	7. 7

**Prompt: Jessica finds out about Harvey and Donna's relationship.**

She’s heard about Faye, and she’s flown out from Chicago unannounced. 

Jessica is no longer their boss, and, at least in New York, she’s no longer a lawyer. But she’s their mentor, and their friend, and she’s fended off more than one hostile takeover in her time. So she arrives, out of the blue, reminding them of what the word ‘regal’ means, to commiserate with Louis and to offer some sage advice, because Harvey and Louis are both panicking internally. 

She walks into Harvey’s office, and he looks up, and says, “Jessica,” as he stands, surprised joy tempered with the stress of Faye looking over his shoulder. “What are you doing here?”

“I heard about Faye,” she said, and then fixes him with a momentary look, and something slots into place behind her gaze. “I thought you could use some support, or at least a smoking buddy for the day.”

Harvey laughs a little at that, and moves to pick up the phone. “I’ll let Louis know you’re here.”

“In a minute,” Jessica says. “I just have a quick question for you.”

Harvey looks up from the dial pad and freezes as she cocks her head, a smug grin on her face, and says, “you and Donna. When?”

There’s still a bizarre knee jerk reaction Harvey has when anyone asks him about Donna and he’s not ready for it, because 15 years of ‘we’re just friends’ doesn’t undo itself overnight, and he fumbles his words for a moment before Jessica rolls her eyes and says, “honestly Harvey, you’re like a goddamn teenager.”

“How… how did you know?”

Jessica drops into the sofa and gestures to his whisky collection. “Harvey, I saw the look on your face that was you pretending you weren’t in love with her every day for 10 years. Do you think I wouldn’t notice that you’ve suddenly stopped looking like you’re pretending you aren’t in love with her? God knows how many hours of productivity we lost to you just moping around her desk like a kid. Now close your mouth and fix me a drink. You look like a fish.”

Harvey presses his lips together and steps around to the low table to pour himself and her a drink, and as he does so, Donna appears in his doorway, saying, “Harvey, I heard Jessica is here. Have you seen her?”

Harvey smiles and gestures towards the sofa with the decanter, and Donna breaks into a beaming smile as Jessica stands, and they hug like reunited sisters. 

“So nice to see you,” Donna says, her voice thick with happiness and all the released pressure of missing someone who’s suddenly appeared in front of you. 

“And you,” Jessica says, and Harvey hears her say, “you finally got that boy to see sense didn’t you.”

Donna laughs at that as they break apart and Harvey hands out glasses of whisky, and they sit and discuss the finer points of his decade-plus of being completely oblivious to Donna and the fact he was desperately in love with her. Harvey sits down in the armchair and sips his drink and feels vaguely like he should be annoyed at the discussion unfolding in front of him, but his mentor is in the same room as him and Donna is with him, so he doesn’t have it in him to be anything other than quietly and wholeheartedly content. 

Donna chats to Jessica and absentmindedly drapes her hand over Harvey’s knee, letting her fingertips lead over the seams of his pant leg, and for Donna it’s normal, it’s just touch like she’d touch anyone she was in love with, but for Harvey it’s still gravity. He drops his palm over her fingers to squeeze lightly, and what a gift it is to do that freely. 

Jessica smiles at them both and says, “be good to her, Harvey. She’s out of your league.”

“Way out,” Donna agrees.

“So far goddamn out,” Jessica says. 

“Hey, I’m a catch too,” Harvey protests. 

“He’s not as smart as he thinks he is,” Jessica murmurs to Donna. 

“I know. I’m just using him for his body,” Donna whispers back. 

  
Harvey sits back, and sips his drink, and it’s the first time since Faye’s shown up that he thinks,  _ yeah, it’s going to be okay. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is the list of organisations I donated to and their websites. Please consider donating to one or more of these:
> 
> blackvisionsmn.org  
> https://www.reclaimtheblock.org/  
> https://bailproject.org  
> https://knowyourrightscamp.com  
> https://actionnetwork.org/fundraising/contribute-to-the-atlanta-solidarity-fund  
> unicornriot.ninja  
> www.blacklivesmatter.com  
> blacktablearts.com  
> m4bl.org  
> https://linktr.ee/nationalbailout  
> https://emergencyreleasefund.com  
> https://naacpldf.org  
> naacp.org  
> runnymedetrust.org  
> https://stephenlawrence.org.uk  
> https://libertyhumanrights.org.uk


	8. 8

**Prompt: Harvey and Donna continue their conversation after Lily and Harvey talk in 9x07.**

He drops into bed next to her, yawning and in an old pair of shorts and a faded Harvard t-shirt, an hour or so after she leaves him on the phone with Lily. She’s been reading quietly, studiously avoiding eavesdropping on their conversation. Harvey wouldn’t mind, she knows, and neither would Lily. But there’s something quiet and sacred about the way Harvey’s learning to approach his mother and his past, something in the slow shuffling towards confronting the ways he’d fallen short as well as the ways she had, and Donna knows, he’ll talk when he’s ready. 

He knocks his shoulders back against his pillows and the headboard, and lets his arm drape into her lap, palm up, playing the hem of her top through his fingertips while he checks his phone for messages, and Donna loves these moments. She loves kissing him, and making love to him, holding him close and telling her she loves him. That’s all glorious. But there’s been so many years where every stolen glance and bumped shoulder meant  _ maybe _ to those huge moments.  _ Maybe Harvey will kiss me  _ and  _ maybe we’ll go to his place _ and  _ maybe Harvey will say it _ . She’d never thought about Harvey unconsciously reaching out through space for her just because she’s there and that’s what he does now. 

In some ways, it’s more overwhelming than the night he showed up her doorstep, terrified and ready. 

“How was Lily?” she asks, dropping her hand to run lightly and rhythmically over his forearm. 

“She's good. She’s really good.” He smiles, and she knows it’s because he doesn’t have to qualify it anymore. No  _ she’s good but  _ or  _ she’s good I think _ . Just  _ she’s good _ . It’s a lot, losing those extra words, she knows. “She asked how you’re doing. She’s looking forward to meeting you.”

“Me too. We’ll go soon,” Donna says. 

Harvey drops the phone, and she can see he’s been using it to gather himself, and he shuffles into his pillows and turns on his side to face her, gently tugging to bring her down to eye level with him. “Hey,” he says. 

“Hey.” God he’s beautiful, she thinks. Handsome, yes - he always has been. But there’s a softness in him he’s letting out, a gentleness that sits easy with his strength, like the world doesn’t bore in on him so much. He leads himself out into the world with his eyes now instead of his chest. He looks peaceful, and rested, and he’s beautiful. 

“Mmm,” she says, and trails her hand up to cup his jaw, tracing his cheekbone under his thumb. 

He looks at her in the way he does when he’s been thinking carefully about how he wants to say whatever’s sitting in his chest. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t say much before. I was a little… overwhelmed.”

Donna starts to tell him that he doesn’t need to say anything, and that she knows anyway, but he shakes his head a little and continues on. “Having that picture? It means so much, Donna. I never thought I’d have that back. It feels like you gave my childhood back. So, thank you. Thank you for all of this.”

It’s so much to hear him talk about his childhood without his voice tightening against an underlying spike of anger that she has to swallow back against a lump in her throat. For almost as long as she’s known him, he couldn’t do it. For a long time, he couldn’t talk about it at all, and then it was just in clipped sarcasm or the occasional outburst when he was done with all of it and she was there to catch his temper. 

Harvey, sharing stories about his mother like they’d never gone years without speaking, is the most simple and profound shift she thinks she’s seen in anyone, ever. 

“You’re welcome,” she says, and leans forward to kiss him, and he kisses her back, and it feels like everything is just how it needs to be.

  
  


When she pulls back, he says, “now can we talk about the baseball bat?”

“We are  _ not _ hanging the bat over my fireplace. I am not having this discussion again.”

“It reminds me of growing up with my brother?” Harvey tries hopefully. 

She laughs, and pulls him on top of her so she can kiss into his neck and work her hands under his shirt to press up his skin, and he smiles into her ear, murmurs again that he loves her, and presses his skin and his happiness against hers. 

And Donna thinks, what a wonder that they made it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is the list of organisations I donated to and their websites. Please consider donating to one or more of these:
> 
> blackvisionsmn.org  
> https://www.reclaimtheblock.org/  
> https://bailproject.org  
> https://knowyourrightscamp.com  
> https://actionnetwork.org/fundraising/contribute-to-the-atlanta-solidarity-fund  
> unicornriot.ninja  
> www.blacklivesmatter.com  
> blacktablearts.com  
> m4bl.org  
> https://linktr.ee/nationalbailout  
> https://emergencyreleasefund.com  
> https://naacpldf.org  
> naacp.org  
> runnymedetrust.org  
> https://stephenlawrence.org.uk  
> https://libertyhumanrights.org.uk


	9. 9

**Prompt: Harvey and Donna hang Lily's picture after Donna gets it back in 9x07.**

Harvey juggles his way back into his front entrance with two cups of coffee and bagels from the bodega down the street. He’s in the loose sweats he’d dragged on that morning on his way out of bed after pressing a kiss to Donna’s forehead. She’d sleepily murmured that she loved him and shuffled onto her side, responding with “mmm” when he’d asked her what she’d wanted for breakfast. 

He loves that Donna is not a morning person. She comes awake slowly, red hair tangling and mussed and not at all the glamorous image she presents to the world around her. Her freckles bump out with greater clarity against white sheets and he loves that she’s grumpy when she wakes up, loves that about her, loves her easy humanity and acceptance of her own unhappiness at the sunrise. 

So it’s a surprise when he slips in the front door with the sun still just starting to peek over the tops of the taller buildings on the skyline and she’s up, another pair of his track pants cinched up high on her waist, her hair in a messy bun, and a pencil tucked behind her ear while she looks critically at the wall over his side table. 

“Hey,” he says. “You’re up.”

“Mmm. She looks over at him, says, “oh thank god, coffee,” and takes a huge sip out of the cup he holds out to her. 

He drops the paper bag with their bagels on the kitchen counter, takes a sip of his own coffee, and looks between her and the wall. He points at the pencil half-hidden behind her ear and says, “should I be worried? That’s a load bearing wall. Is there a sledgehammer hidden around here?” 

Donna smiles and presses up on her toes for a moment to kiss him. “We’re putting the painting up.”

“Mmm.” He kisses her back, smiles. “So no sledgehammer? Just double checking.”

“Your apartment is safe for now.” 

The problem is that Harvey is shit at hanging pictures. It’s a total blind spot to him. He’s completely meticulous in so many other areas of life, in the way he catches and manipulates the minutiae of law into his favour, in the way he knows nearly everything about every American muscle car ever made, in the way he can explain the nuances between different vintages of whisky. 

But hanging pictures somehow falls into the ‘close enough’ lobe of his brain. One of the first things Donna did when she’d first visited his apartment years ago was to send an interior designer around to straighten everything and point out that colours can clash with each other. 

If it was up to him, Donna had said, and not without merit, his house would look like a Dr. Seuss picture. 

And so he’s happy to be put in the position of assistant while Donna measures carefully, marking spots on the wall with pencil and double checking with the straight edge level built into the app she’s downloaded specifically for the purpose, which Harvey finds adorable. 

It takes them a while to hang the picture, because she’s gorgeous, all shabby beauty that only he sees, and he keeps getting distracted by her and then pulling her into his distraction, nudging up behind her to wrap his arms around her waist and kiss the back of her neck, and then laugh when she protests, “Harvey, I’m trying to concentrate.”

“So am I,” he says, and takes a moment to kiss his way down her neck. She hums contentedly before nudging him in the torso with her elbow. “Let me focus,” she says, throwing him a look that promises a trip back to bed once they’re finished. 

He helps her position, place, helps her knock nails into walls and laughs good naturedly while she tells him his biceps and butt look good when he’s using a hammer. 

It’s nothing special. It’s just life. It’s coffee and chores, jokes and stolen kisses. It shouldn’t feel like much really, this mundanity of living. 

But it does. Because he very nearly missed it. He very nearly didn’t come to his senses before she finally closed the door completely, and then he would have woken up on this morning alone, and without someone to buy coffee for, without a painting to hang, and without Donna, beautiful in his clothes, making fun of him. And he wouldn’t have even known what he was missing. 

He hangs the picture, and takes her back to bed, and makes sure she knows that he knows how lucky he is. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is the list of organisations I donated to and their websites. Please consider donating to one or more of these:
> 
> blackvisionsmn.org  
> https://www.reclaimtheblock.org/  
> https://bailproject.org  
> https://knowyourrightscamp.com  
> https://actionnetwork.org/fundraising/contribute-to-the-atlanta-solidarity-fund  
> unicornriot.ninja  
> www.blacklivesmatter.com  
> blacktablearts.com  
> m4bl.org  
> https://linktr.ee/nationalbailout  
> https://emergencyreleasefund.com  
> https://naacpldf.org  
> naacp.org  
> runnymedetrust.org  
> https://stephenlawrence.org.uk  
> https://libertyhumanrights.org.uk


	10. 10

**Prompt: Harvey and Donna help at a homeless shelter. At first Harvey doesn't like it, but he comes around to the idea.**

“Why can’t we just … give them money?” Harvey asks. He’s complaining, but he’s being good natured about it. Sort of. Donna has always suspected that Harvey has two personalities. There is pre-coffee Harvey, and there is post-coffee Harvey. It’s 6am, in the middle of winter, while they stamp cold and snow off their boots in the entrance of the local homeless shelter. It’s too early for any of their local haunts, and so, pre-coffee Harvey is out in force.

Pre-coffee Harvey, Donna decides, is a pain in the ass. 

“We did,” she said, dropping her coat and smiling warmly at Amy, the local volunteer coordinator, who’s there to give them jobs and a brief rundown of rules and expectations. Donna has already been here several times, but nods along attentively. Harvey listens at the same time that he thinks about coffee.

Donna is sent to help prep breakfast and food parcels. Amy raises her eyebrow at Harvey, and Harvey feels like he’s subject to an inside joke nobody’s told him about. 

“I hear you’re a lawyer,” she says. 

“I - yes.” She smiles at that answer as if he’s given away more than he should, and he feels like he’s been caught, and he thinks, _ no wonder Donna likes you _ . 

“Great,” she says. “We have a lot of people staying here because they’ve been unfairly evicted from their properties. We could use someone with a legal background to help figure out which cases have opportunities to appeal.”

“What, right now? It’s not even light outside.” Wading through the obscurities of tenancy law at 6:30am is not what he had in mind, and surely, he thinks, people will be asleep. 

“Yes, now.” She fixes him with a sympathetic but hard look. “If you’re homeless you don’t have the luxury of being worried about when the help comes or where it comes from. Just remember you’re dealing with people who have dignity. They’re homeless, not worthless.”

Harvey grimaces at that. Mike hasn’t rubbed off on him all the way, and he still forgets how many people get beaten down by a system he’s almost completely escaped from. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay. We’re grateful for your help. I know this is new.”

Harvey sits, and talks. He talks with people that have tried their best, that have worked their whole lives, who mostly are still working, and then had a cheque bounce, or had one too many sick days off work, or suffered one too many rent increases. They’re smart, and intelligent, and not a single person he speaks to deserves to be there or wants to stay there.

He’s literally never thought it before, but halfway through the morning, he thinks,  _ Jesus. There but for the grace of god _ . 

He listens, and takes notes down quickly, scribbling messy penmanship on paper, and gives advice, and by the time Donna slides in behind him to get his attention by smoothing her hand over his shoulder, he’s shuffling through a small pile of complaints to take to Mike on Monday. 

“You ready?” she says. 

“Yeah, one second,” he says, deep in a moment of concentration, and he looks just like he used to in the file room in New York. 

“I’ll get our coats,” she says. 

“Mmm. Let Amy know when we’re back here next week we’ll need some proper forms for everyone to fill out.”

“Next week?” Donna asks.

Harvey just glances up for a moment before going back to his notes and saying, “yeah, why?”

She smiles, and says, “nothing,” and thinks if she can just find them coffee next time, they’ll be fine. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is the list of organisations I donated to and their websites. Please consider donating to one or more of these:
> 
> blackvisionsmn.org  
> https://www.reclaimtheblock.org/  
> https://bailproject.org  
> https://knowyourrightscamp.com  
> https://actionnetwork.org/fundraising/contribute-to-the-atlanta-solidarity-fund  
> unicornriot.ninja  
> www.blacklivesmatter.com  
> blacktablearts.com  
> m4bl.org  
> https://linktr.ee/nationalbailout  
> https://emergencyreleasefund.com  
> https://naacpldf.org  
> naacp.org  
> runnymedetrust.org  
> https://stephenlawrence.org.uk  
> https://libertyhumanrights.org.uk


	11. 11

**Prompt: Harvey meets Donna's sister.**

“You okay?”

She almost says yes, because she always says she’s fine. Donna has made a good trade through the years in being fine, in being awesome, in ignoring her own struggles so that she can help others work through theirs. Over the years,  _ I’m fine _ has become a battle cry, has become a deflection, has become a bottle. She’s spent a lot of time packing herself away at work and unpacking herself at night over the years. 

But it’s different now. She’s with him, finally, and he’s worked so hard to be where he needs to be. He knows her and he knows how to be for her, now.

So, she says, “not really.”

He presses his palm into the small of her back and says, “I’ve got you.” He’s solid, and warm, and steady, and he’s right. He’s got her. He’s safety. 

She knocks, on the door of her sister’s apartment, for the first time in a long time. 

It’s just as awkward as she expects. She loves her sister, but she is also the reason Donna knows how to read the room and read people so well. She’s full of sly sideways glances and small phrases that sound like they could be compliments but aren’t. 

Harvey glances at her every now and then, and his eyes say  _ so that’s why you always knew _ . It’s easy to see someone’s emotional explosion on the horizon, she supposes, when you grew up picking your way through a minefield. Her sister is well practised at laying traps for her. 

There’s just one problem. Donna’s sister is not expecting Donna. Like most older sisters, she is expecting Donna as she was when she left home, all gangly limbs and apologies and unsure of herself. She isn’t expecting Donna as a COO, fully self assured and confident and utterly unconcerned with her approval. She isn’t expecting someone who has found someone she wants to be with without changing them. She is not expecting someone who’s fucking earned it. 

And she definitely isn’t expecting Harvey. She doesn’t expect him, all awe and infatuation, looking at Donna like a sunrise god made just for him. She doesn’t expect his easy, confident smile, and his steady gaze, and his love for her sister. And she definitely doesn’t expect the way Harvey marries infatuation with respect and the way he ties his own strength into it all. 

He’s no doormat, and Donna is no teenager, and for the first time maybe ever, Donna’s sister backs down. At least until Donna excuses herself to go to the bathroom, and she fixes Harvey with a look that’s just like the one Donna gives him sometimes, except the coldness is real and not faked. 

“So you’re who I’ve heard about all these years,” she says, but he can’t tell if she’s happy about it, and her tone is even, and as she looks at him, he realises.

She’s trying for a fight. 

_ Jesus _ , Harvey thinks,  _ does everyone in Donna’s family want to fight me.  _

“I am.”

“How long do you think this will last? Really?” she asks. 

He looks at her, and takes a moment, and he realises two things. The first thing is that Donna’s family is as difficult and complicated as his, and that says something monumental about her, he thinks, because she’s always been so much better than him. 

The second is that Donna’s sister loves her and, in her own fucked up way, wants the best for her. 

“I love her,” he says. “This is it for me. Donna is it. Always has been.” He picks up his glass, and says, “and it would be lovely to have you as part of this. But if you don’t respect her, and us -” 

“You’ll read me the riot act?”

He shrugs as he sips. “I could, but I won’t need to. Donna doesn’t need me for that.” He leans back on his elbow and smiles. He’s not threatening. He doesn’t have to. He’s with Donna, and that’s plenty.

And, after a moment, she smiles too. “Well, okay then,” she says. 

When Donna comes back, they hug, properly, and Harvey thinks, maybe they’re both getting the hang of this family thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is the list of organisations I donated to and their websites. Please consider donating to one or more of these:
> 
> blackvisionsmn.org  
> https://www.reclaimtheblock.org/  
> https://bailproject.org  
> https://knowyourrightscamp.com  
> https://actionnetwork.org/fundraising/contribute-to-the-atlanta-solidarity-fund  
> unicornriot.ninja  
> www.blacklivesmatter.com  
> blacktablearts.com  
> m4bl.org  
> https://linktr.ee/nationalbailout  
> https://emergencyreleasefund.com  
> https://naacpldf.org  
> naacp.org  
> runnymedetrust.org  
> https://stephenlawrence.org.uk  
> https://libertyhumanrights.org.uk


	12. 12

**Prompt: Harvey has dinner with Donna's parents**

“I think she hates me,” Harvey stage whispers towards Donna, as he hangs their coats in the entrance way.

“Of course she doesn’t hate you,” Donna says. She pauses for a moment, then says, “my dad hates you, but not my mom.” But she’s smiling as she says it, and he rolls his eyes to thank her for the support. 

Donna hangs Clara’s bag next to her coat, and takes him by the elbows, ducking her head to catch his eyes with hers. “Hey. Don’t be nervous. I love you, and so do they. It’s going to be fine.”

“Clara’s barely met me,” Harvey says, and he’s pouting the way he does when he knows Donna’s right but doesn’t want to admit it. Privately, Donna thinks how goddamn cute he is when he’s got his chin jutted out and he’s refusing to make eye contact with her. 

“I’ve spent years talking about you on the phone. She knows you better than Mike does,” she says, and presses up on her toes to kiss him. It’s meant to be a quick, reassuring peck, but he circles his fingers around her hips and pulls her lightly against him, humming his love for her against her mouth, and the world stops for a second so that he can nudge his lip between hers and press in lightly. 

He’s way too old and too far into his marriage for all the air to go out of his lungs when she kisses him. 

But it still does.

“Can’t we just send them out for pizza,” he murmurs, when she pulls back for a moment. “I’m not hungry.” 

She smiles and pokes him in the stomach. “Excuse me, what happened to the you from an hour ago, Mr ‘oh my god, when are they going to be here, I’m going to die if we don’t eat soon’?.”

Harvey considers her for a moment before asking to check the prenup they never got around to signing, and she laughs and slaps his butt as she walks off to the kitchen to pour drinks. 

.

It only takes half an hour for Harvey and Clara to fall in love with each other. 

She’s got the same twinkle in her eye that Donna does, and she’s never had a son, but Harvey takes to the challenge instantly. He seems to know instinctively how to pull a smile and a laugh out of her, and Donna remembers how goddamn charming he can be when he wants to. 

At one point he looks over at her and winks, the thought  _ this is going well _ written all over his face, and she thinks lovingly,  _ bastard _ . 

They spend the evening recounting stories from Donna’s childhood and the DA’s office while Donna blushes and begs her father to offer some kind of defence or moral support. Jim sits with a wide smile on his face and a glass of wine is his hand and just looks like his happiness is tied to Donna’s and therefore, in that moment, infinite. 

Harvey’s face lights up as Clara tells him about the time she ran away from home because her parents wouldn’t buy her a horse to keep in the backyard of their semi-detached condo, and Donna huffs good-naturedly into her wine at the betrayal, hissing,  _ mom _ . Harvey’s hand sneaks up her back as Clara recounts, probably verbatim, the indignant speech she’d given with a spare pair of shoes and half a loaf of bread stuffed into her backpack, before she’d stormed out the door. 

Jim had followed her in the car until she’d gotten tired and grumpily accepted a lift home after negotiating to get a kitten as a compromise.

Donna pretends she hates it but doesn’t at all. 

Later, after they’ve said their goodbyes and closed the door after them, Harvey wraps his arms around Donna’s shoulders and pulls her into his side, pressing a tired and happy kiss into her temple. “Your mom loves me,” he says. 

“Traitors,” Donna says, wrapping her arm around his waist. “She promised she’d never tell anyone that goddamned horse story.”

He turns his head so that his lips tickle her ear and murmurs, “are you going to leave me if I point out we can’t keep one here either?”

“Possibly. I’ll think about it.”

And she tugs on his collar, and he leans in to kiss her, and is content.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is the list of organisations I donated to and their websites. Please consider donating to one or more of these:
> 
> blackvisionsmn.org  
> https://www.reclaimtheblock.org/  
> https://bailproject.org  
> https://knowyourrightscamp.com  
> https://actionnetwork.org/fundraising/contribute-to-the-atlanta-solidarity-fund  
> unicornriot.ninja  
> www.blacklivesmatter.com  
> blacktablearts.com  
> m4bl.org  
> https://linktr.ee/nationalbailout  
> https://emergencyreleasefund.com  
> https://naacpldf.org  
> naacp.org  
> runnymedetrust.org  
> https://stephenlawrence.org.uk  
> https://libertyhumanrights.org.uk


	13. 13

**Prompt: Harvey and Donna have a fight while caught in the rain without an umbrella but make up by giggling their way through it.**

“Jesus, why did we goddamn move here?” he snaps. 

They’re hunched under one of the few awnings in the central city, trapped by yet another rain squall that had appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, as they tried to make their way home from a show Donna had generously described as ‘a valiant effort’. 

They’ve been in Seattle for six months, and neither of them has grown wary or cynical enough to carry an umbrella around, choosing instead to look out the window and say ‘it’ll be fine’ with all the infinite hope of a couple of idiots willing the fundamental climate of their adopted city to change in their favour. 

Harvey has turned his coat up against the rain and the wind, but it’s heavy wool, designed for the dry cold of a New York winter, and it’s sodden, and he’s starting to feel like he’s hauling concrete around on his shoulders. 

Donna’s is waterproof, but thin. She’s always been the more patient of the two, but she also looks like she’s making a visible effort not to shiver in the night wind. 

“We have to remember umbrellas. We’re stupid to keep thinking we don’t need them,” she says, worn patience edging her voice, and it’s an innocent statement, but Harvey is wet and tired enough to take it personally.

“I said we should have taken a cab,” he says. “It’s not  _ always  _ romantic to walk everywhere just because the city is a bit smaller.” 

He misses Ray. Stupid goddamn city. 

“Jesus, Harvey, it’s not like a I made it rain,” she says. “I’m getting wet as well. The world isn’t out to get you.”

“Well it goddamn feels like it,” he gripes, and even he inwardly grimaces at that.  _ Jesus, what a child _ . 

Donna throws her hands in the air and stalks off from him, out from under the canopy and into the rain. “Goddamn baby,” she says, echoing his thoughts.

“Donna,” he calls, huffing when she ignores him and hustling out into the rain after her. 

They’re both frustrated, but they’re both simmering close to laughter with how ridiculous the whole situation is. 

Harvey catches up to Donna, catches her wrist in his hand. She turns to him and is halfway through snapping, “what?” when he presses his body into hers and kisses her like they’re alone in the world. 

He’s still lightning in her bones when he kisses her, and she wraps her arms around his waist under his coat as he sucks her lip gently between his, his teeth scraping over the cleft under her nose, his tongue touching against hers lightly. Rainwater draws rivulets down his wrists as he pushes his fingers through her hair, and the warmth of her palms against his back nudges heat low in his spine. 

Donna starts to pull back, a smile tugging across her face, but the night is suddenly perfect and the chill in her bones has all but disappeared, and she thinks distantly, these are the moments you waited for, and so she leans back in to press a couple more kisses against his smile as he huffs a laugh against her and she giggles. 

“Jesus, we can fight about anything, can’t we,” she says, and he laughs. 

“Yeah, but you have to admit the makeup sex is pretty great.” 

She rolls her eyes and hails a cab. 

Later, as they pull each other's clothes off to drop in a sodden heap as they kiss each other into the shower to warm up and make love, he thinks, maybe not carrying an umbrella around isn’t so bad after all. 

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is the list of organisations I donated to and their websites. Please consider donating to one or more of these:
> 
> blackvisionsmn.org  
> https://www.reclaimtheblock.org/  
> https://bailproject.org  
> https://knowyourrightscamp.com  
> https://actionnetwork.org/fundraising/contribute-to-the-atlanta-solidarity-fund  
> unicornriot.ninja  
> www.blacklivesmatter.com  
> blacktablearts.com  
> m4bl.org  
> https://linktr.ee/nationalbailout  
> https://emergencyreleasefund.com  
> https://naacpldf.org  
> naacp.org  
> runnymedetrust.org  
> https://stephenlawrence.org.uk  
> https://libertyhumanrights.org.uk


	14. 14

**Prompt: Donna dresses up as she was dressed when they first met and surprises Harvey for their anniversary. He doesn't recognise the outfit at first.**

He’s starting to think he’s going to have to cancel dinner. 

As it turns out, class action lawsuits don’t always feel like fighting the man and fighting for the good guys. Often they just feel like the same questions to a parade of people, over and over, slowly being beat down by the depressing monotony of the stories and circumstances. Poor people lied to, swindled by legalese and legislation they shouldn’t be expected to know, companies using people like profit. It’s rewarding, but it’s also shitty and hard and difficult. 

And long. Harvey has so much to do. And on his anniversary, of all things. But he and Donna are becoming more like Mike and Rachel every day. The class actions and the helping are becoming more important, and the cars and whisky and theatre are becoming less so. They’ll both always love those things, and Donna’s always loved helping. It’s just… different now. 

He’s just about to scrub his hands over his face and admit defeat, to call Donna and apologise and promise to make it up to her, when there’s a quiet knock on his door, and he looks up, and it’s her. 

“Hey,” she says, and the smile on her face is an inside joke. 

“Hi,” he says, and his voice is doing that soft thing it does when it’s just them, which he used to think he should be embarrassed about but doesn’t anymore. 

He squints at her. “You look…”

“Different?” She quirks an eyebrow at him, and he thinks, that’s the inside joke, but he still can’t quite place it. Bangs, argyle, and she looks somehow years younger than she used to be. 

“Beautiful,” he corrects, and she laughs at that because his sweetness is still a surprise to both of them at times, and thinks, you really are gone. 

She glances at the pile of folders in front of him. “You look busy.”

He leans back and tries for a smile but it comes out halfway to a sigh. “It’s been a day.”

“A lucky day.”

“Oh? Why is that?”

“Because it’s the day you get to meet Donna.”

And he clicks so quickly he thinks he can feel a switch go off in his brain. Because she does look younger. Around 16 years younger, to be specific. And he feels himself smile properly then, so wide he thinks his jaw might unhinge. 

“Miss Paulsen,” he says, and stands to round the table towards her. 

“ _ Mrs _ Paulsen,” she corrects. “I’m a married woman now.” 

“Ah,” he says, nodding conspiratorially as he falls his hands on her hips and bumps his nose against hers. “Who’s the lucky guy?”

“Some idiot who’s thinking of bailing on his anniversary dinner with me,” she murmurs, and presses a soft, slow kiss against his lips, and he kisses her back and wonders distantly how it is that she can kiss him just so that every kiss feels like the first, all electricity and promise. 

“What a moron,” he agrees, in between kisses and breaths, and then, “if it was me I’d cancel dinner too, but for other reasons.”

She laughs against him. He loves pressing kisses against her as she laughs. “Dinner?” she asks. “Or home?”

“Home.”

“Good answer. I knew you weren’t that stupid.”

She tugs his hand, towards the elevator, and home, and her, and she is perfect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is the list of organisations I donated to and their websites. Please consider donating to one or more of these:
> 
> blackvisionsmn.org  
> https://www.reclaimtheblock.org/  
> https://bailproject.org  
> https://knowyourrightscamp.com  
> https://actionnetwork.org/fundraising/contribute-to-the-atlanta-solidarity-fund  
> unicornriot.ninja  
> www.blacklivesmatter.com  
> blacktablearts.com  
> m4bl.org  
> https://linktr.ee/nationalbailout  
> https://emergencyreleasefund.com  
> https://naacpldf.org  
> naacp.org  
> runnymedetrust.org  
> https://stephenlawrence.org.uk  
> https://libertyhumanrights.org.uk


	15. 15

**Prompt: Donna makes Harvey try yoga, which he pretends to hate but secretly enjoys.**

“You said you’d try it.”

“I said we’d  _ discuss _ it.”

“Saying ‘if I can’t hit someone it’s not a sport’ is  _ not _ having a discussion about yoga, Harvey.”

Harvey wrinkles his nose as he lets his fingers tickle up the base of her spine. She has a point. “I just. It’s slow stretching. How is that exercise?”

“Oh my god, Harvey, you’re such a boy.” She rolls over into his side, hooking a leg over his hip and pressing a kiss into his neck. “Come with me.” She says it in that deep, purring voice that’s mostly breath and none of the higher register of her vocal chords, and it’s the voice that always makes his skin flash out in goosebumps and lose any thought that’s not about his body against hers. 

Oh, she’s good.

“I know what you’re doing,” he says evenly. 

She nudges her nose along the line of his jaw and hums against his skin. 

“Stop it.” He tickles her ribcage until she pulls away, giggling, and he says, “tease,” good naturedly. 

She laughs, and so does he, and she says, “come with me. Try it. If you hate it I’ll let you get the pizza without the yellow tomatoes.”

“I’m gonna need a lot more than freedom from yellow tomatoes out of this.” 

“Like what?”

“I’m willing to negotiate terms.”

She smoothes her hand up his torso and nudges a kiss against his bicep. “I’m sure we can come to some kind of arrangement.”

He chuckles and leans in. “I’m sure we can,” he murmurs against her lips, as he pushes a slow kiss against hers. 

.

“Oh my god.”

Donna laughs at him. “It seems a not-a-real-sport has kicked your ass.”

“Oh my  _ god _ .”

He’s ruined. His limbs are shaking, his core feels like it’s been put through a meat grinder, he’s pretty sure he’s sweated out half his body weight, and how the fuck does Donna do this four times a week.

He’s kneeling, hunched, his face pressed into the yoga mat while he tries to catch his breath and sweat drips into his eyes. He’s gasping for air so deeply that he feels like his lungs are knocking into his spine with every breath and he’s wondering if passing out is an acceptable way to end the session. 

Donna drops her hand onto his back, and he glances at her, and she’s holding out a water bottle and smiling  _ I told you so _ at him with such a deep level of smugness that he thinks maybe she’s never loved him in the first place.

It’s the most betrayed he’s ever felt. 

“I can’t believe you did this to me,” he gasps out. He takes the bottle and collapses onto his back so he can take a long sip and press the cool of the metal container against his forehead for a moment of relief. 

“Should I call an ambulance, or do you just need a couple more minutes to finish being dramatic?”

“Just ...give me a second.” He throws his elbow over his eyes and takes a moment to regret every life decision he’s made that’s led him to this moment. He decides he’d rather take a clean uppercut from Mike Tyson than do this ever again. 

She’s still got that smile on her face when he pushes himself onto unsteady legs and holds out a towel for himself to wipe his face dry. “How you doing there, champ?”

“We’re not getting the yellow tomatoes.”

She squints at him for a second, says, “you’re going to want to do this again.”

“I am not.”

She tips her head, reads him like a book, and says, “yes you are.”

Two days later, he asks her if there’s a spare spot in the next class she’s got booked. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is the list of organisations I donated to and their websites. Please consider donating to one or more of these:
> 
> blackvisionsmn.org  
> https://www.reclaimtheblock.org/  
> https://bailproject.org  
> https://knowyourrightscamp.com  
> https://actionnetwork.org/fundraising/contribute-to-the-atlanta-solidarity-fund  
> unicornriot.ninja  
> www.blacklivesmatter.com  
> blacktablearts.com  
> m4bl.org  
> https://linktr.ee/nationalbailout  
> https://emergencyreleasefund.com  
> https://naacpldf.org  
> naacp.org  
> runnymedetrust.org  
> https://stephenlawrence.org.uk  
> https://libertyhumanrights.org.uk


	16. 16

**Prompt: Harvey and Donna discuss not needing/wanting kids**

“Well that was goddamn exhausting.”

Harvey laughs at that. Donna has been in fun auntie mode all day, Mike and Rachel having dropped Ben off with them in the morning while they had a long-awaited Saturday for themselves. 

Ben is beautiful, all blue eyes and curly dark hair, and he’s got the idealism of Mike, the compassion of Rachel, and the smarts of both of his parents all rolled into one. 

Harvey secretly thinks Ben is smarter than him already, and sometimes he looks at him like he knows something Harvey doesn’t, and Harvey looks uncomfortably back at him. Once he whispered, “are you onto me?” and Donna laughed from across the room. 

Donna is amazing with Ben. She has an unmatched capacity to just  _ know  _ people, and that’s no different with kids than with adults. She’s beautiful, he privately thinks, crouched in front of Ben with a patient smile as she tries, for the fifth time in as many minutes, to explain why he cannot take a bath with his clothes on. 

She loves every second of it. And that’s why Harvey laughs when Mike and Rachel collect Ben, because the minute the door closes, Donna collapses into the couch, lets loose all the curse words she’s been storing up all day, and declares herself to be as tired as it’s humanly possible to be. 

Harvey sympathetically drops down next to her with a commiserating glass of wine and nods his agreement. She immediately presses her frame along the cushions, laying her head in his lap, grabbing at his hand and nudging his fingers into her hair. He takes the hint and scratches over her scalp lightly while she sighs like she’s just been released from prison. 

“Fun, huh,” Harvey says, managing to split the difference between joking and seriousness. 

“Does it ever get easier?” she asks. Harvey has been a fun uncle for far longer than she’s been a fun auntie.

“Fuck no. Marcus’ kids are basically walking minefields. It just gets hard in different ways. You wait until Ben is in his ‘I need to be read this one story fifteen times before I can sleep’ phase. That’s a fun one.”

She laughs, then goes quiet for a minute. “Is it something you want? Kids, I mean.”

He considers for a long moment, before speaking carefully. It’s not something they’ve ever talked about, and he feels like he’s on eggshells. “Not really. I always thought I just didn’t want them yet because I was young, or because I was busy with work, or because I hadn’t found the right girl yet.” He lifts her hand to press a kiss to the inside of her palm. “But now I have all that, and … I just don’t think about kids as a part of us. I love being an uncle. I really do. But I feel like if I wanted kids of my own, I would have stopped at some point in my life and thought, kids would be good. You know?” He waits, but she’s quiet for a moment, and he thinks,  _ fuck, she probably wants nine kids or something _ , and how in 16 years has neither of them managed to mention this to the other?

Trying to shake his nervousness out of his voice, and ready for a long night of difficult conversation, he says, “what about you?”

“Oh god. No way. Can you imagine this every day? No,” she says, with such casual certainty that he bursts into surprised laughter.

She looks up at him. “Relieved?”

He shakes his head. “No, that’s not it. Kids are great. I love having them around. I want to share my life with the kids. With Mike and Rachel’s and Marcus’. Just..”

“Not for us.”

“Not for us.”

“Good,” she says, pulling his head to hers and smiling into the stereotype. “I was worried your biological clock was going haywire on us.”

He laughs, and kisses her, and she makes him clean up after Ben. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is the list of organisations I donated to and their websites. Please consider donating to one or more of these:
> 
> blackvisionsmn.org  
> https://www.reclaimtheblock.org/  
> https://bailproject.org  
> https://knowyourrightscamp.com  
> https://actionnetwork.org/fundraising/contribute-to-the-atlanta-solidarity-fund  
> unicornriot.ninja  
> www.blacklivesmatter.com  
> blacktablearts.com  
> m4bl.org  
> https://linktr.ee/nationalbailout  
> https://emergencyreleasefund.com  
> https://naacpldf.org  
> naacp.org  
> runnymedetrust.org  
> https://stephenlawrence.org.uk  
> https://libertyhumanrights.org.uk


	17. 17

**Prompt: Donna is pregnant. Harvey brings her Thai food on a rainy morning and they have a fluffy conversation.**

“This is all incredibly unfair,” he calls out as he jostles the door open with his foot, his arms juggling boxes of steaming food, smells not designed for ten in the morning making his nose wrinkle. 

“Where have you been?” Donna calls back. She’s propped up in the corner of their sofa in a still slightly unfamiliar apartment, sipping herbal tea, which she hates, and glancing over at the thai Harvey has tracked down, which she doesn’t. 

Harvey’s started to joke that she could use her stomach as a coaster. She can’t, not quite yet, but she’s close. She has, however, taken to propping her book on it when she reads in the drizzle of the morning. She’s six months along and everything is starting to feel uncomfortable beyond the morning sickness, mostly subsided now, and the cravings, mostly for shitty Thai, coming in their wake. Donna has tended to shun elastic-based clothing in the past, but she’s suddenly become very aware of the benefits. 

“I’ve been out looking for your breakfast,” he complains good naturedly. 

“Did you make it by hand? I was about to call the police and file a missing persons report.”

“Do you know how hard it is to find Pad Thai in Seattle at nine in the morning on a Sunday?” Harvey asks, dumping the takeout package on the kitchen counter and shaking his fingers through his hair, tousling out a drizzle of rainwater as he rummages for plates. “Goddamn city.” But he says it with a growing affection for the slower pace and the weather. He’d never thought he liked rain, he’d told her, until he finally had Donna, and along with that, a reason to talk himself out of going to the gym in the morning. He’s decided that his slightly softer stomach and slightly smaller arms is a small price to pay for dozing the early morning away with the sound of rain pitting against the glass and her steady warmth pressed back against his torso. 

Which is probably a good part of the reason that he and Donna, unexpected and joyful, found themselves with a whole brand new person on the way. 

He drops himself onto the sofa next to her, sliding her pad Thai onto the coffee table in front of her and sitting back to unwrap his slightly more reasonable breakfast of a bagel and coffee. “Hey, little bump,” he says, absentmindedly, dropping his hand over Donna’s stomach as if it was the most normal and natural thing in the world, and Donna tucks away a smile. Harvey isn’t different since she’s gotten pregnant. He’s just … looser. Easier. He’s more like him, she thinks, than he’s ever let himself be. 

God, she loves him. 

“What are you reading?” he asks, word muffled through a mouthful of bagel. 

“Normal People.” She edges the cover towards him like it might mean something while she leans forward to grab a mouthful of her breakfast. Harvey nods and pretends interest. He prefers history and doesn’t quite get non-fiction, but he tries, and she likes the way his smile lines crease across his forehead when he tries to look over her shoulder at a paragraph or two because he can’t read quite as sharply as he used to but he won’t admit he needs glasses. 

“What’s it about? Star crossed men and women crying?”

“Star crossed teenagers crying.”

“Are you going to spend an hour sobbing in the bath later?”

“That was one time, and it was hormones.” 

He leans back with a huffed laugh, and it’s the most natural thing in the world for her to fold herself into the side of his chest as he does, letting his arm drape over the back of her shoulders. Harvey turns his head towards her so he can press a kiss into her temple, and he says, “I hope little bump cares about things like you do.” 

And she thinks again, God I love him. 

**Author's Note:**

> Here is the list of organisations I donated to and their websites. Please consider donating to one or more of these:
> 
> blackvisionsmn.org  
> https://www.reclaimtheblock.org/  
> https://bailproject.org  
> https://knowyourrightscamp.com  
> https://actionnetwork.org/fundraising/contribute-to-the-atlanta-solidarity-fund  
> unicornriot.ninja  
> www.blacklivesmatter.com  
> blacktablearts.com  
> m4bl.org  
> https://linktr.ee/nationalbailout  
> https://emergencyreleasefund.com  
> https://naacpldf.org  
> naacp.org  
> runnymedetrust.org  
> https://stephenlawrence.org.uk  
> https://libertyhumanrights.org.uk


End file.
